More than 500 people have died in Nigeria as a result of widespread flooding, which has also submerged some 90,000 homes and cut off the supply of food and gasoline, two government departments reported on Friday.
The floods, which have been building since early summer, have affected about 1.4 million people in 27 of Nigeria’s 36 states, according to the ministries for humanitarian affairs and disaster management.
Director General of the National Emergency Management Agency Mustapha Habib Ahmed further stated in a statement that “the extent of the calamity is immense.”
Drone footage captured on Thursday in Lokoja, which is located in north-central Kogi state at the meeting point of the Niger and Benue rivers and has been flooded for weeks, revealed scores of inundated residences and commercial buildings.
As he observed his sunken fuel tanks and the neighboring soggy streets, local resident Khalid Yahaya Othman told reporters, “I have never seen such a thing.”
“We never thought it would arrive and overcover the tank while this water was pouring,” he claimed.
Fuel shortage in Abuja, the nation’s capital, was attributed to floods that closed a crucial road out of Lokoja.
According to Koton Karfe, a federal road safety official, the floodwaters have been impeding traffic for at least two weeks.
